Magazine Posts

John Constable (1776 – 1837). English landscape painter, born in Suffolk. His work is classified as being in the Romantic tradition. He is known principally for revolutionizing the genre of landscape painting with his paintings of Dedham Vale where his home was located. The area is now known "Constable Country" Some of his most well known paintings include Wivenhoe Park (1816), Dedham Vale (1821) and The Hay Wain (1821). His paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British art. 

Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 –1682) was a French artist of the Baroque era. His actual name was Claude Gellee, but he is better known by the province in which he was born. He spent most of his life in Italy, and is regarded as one of the great masters of ideal landscape and known for his golden-hued pastoral landscapes which usually include the addition of a few small figures, typically representing a scene from the Bible or classical mythology. More

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (1884 – 1920)  Italian painter and sculptor known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, and figures that were not received well during his lifetime, but later became much sought-after. Modigliani spent his youth in Italy, and moved to Paris in 1906, where he came into contact with such artists as Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brâncuși. More

Henri Lebasque (1865 – 1937) was a French post-impressionist painter. His work is represented in French museums, notably Angers, Geneva (Petit Palais), Lille (Musée des Beaux-Arts), Nantes, and Paris (Musée d’Orsay). He started his education at the École régionale des beaux-arts d'Angers, and moved to Paris in 1886. There, Lebasque started studying under Léon Bonnat, and assisted Ferdinand Humbert with the decorative murals at the Panthéon. Around this time, Lebasque met Camille Pissarro and Auguste Renoir, who later would have a large impact on his work. More

Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael - (1629 – 1682), was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of great wealth and cultural achievement when Dutch painting became highly popular. More

Paul Gauguin or Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) was one of the most influential Post-Impressionist artists. Gauguin's experimental use of color and stark contrasts spearheaded the Synthetism movement, which regarded form and color as equally important. Most of his paintings depict people or landscapes from French Polynesia since he spent many years in that region in search of inspiration. His artistic experiments influenced many avant-garde movements in the early 20th century as well as modern artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. More

Berthe Morisot - Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (1841 – 1895) was a French painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. Morisot was married to Eugène Manet, the brother of her friend and colleague Édouard Manet. She was described by art critic Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" (The three great ladies) of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.

Martin Johnson Heade (1819 – 1904) was an American painter known for his salt marsh landscapes, seascapes, and depictions of tropical birds (such as hummingbirds), as well as lotus blossoms and other still lifes. 
Heade was not a widely known artist during his lifetime, but his work attracted the notice of scholars, art historians, and collectors during the 1940s and  quickly became recognized as a major American artist.. Heade's works are now in major museums and collections. His paintings are occasionally discovered in unlikely places such as garage sales and flea markets.

James Madison Alden (1834 - 1922). Born in Boxborough, MA, he was the great great great grandson of the John Alden who had journeyed across the Atlantic on the Mayflower. He enlisted in the naval force and was assigned to the Pacific Coast charting project.  He created numerous water color drawings as he travel up and down the West Coast and inland areas such as the Sierras and Yosemite. He served in the Civil War and spent his final years in Florida. He is regarded as one of the most highly accomplished of the expedition survey artists. A large body of his work exists.
Sources include The Royal Engineers Living History Group  and Islapedia among others. 

Camille Pissarro (1830 - 1903) Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but then in the Danish West Indies). His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. He "acted as a father figure not only to the Impressionists" but to all four of the major Post-Impressionists, Cézanne, Seurat, Gauguin, and van Gogh.

Hugo Simberg (1873 - 1917) was a Finnish symbolist painter and graphic artist. He studied under Gallen-Kallela for three periods between 1895 and 1897. In 1896, Simberg went to London, and the following year to Paris and Italy. During these years he exhibited several works at the Finnish Artists' autumn exhibitions, including Autumn, Frost, The Devil Playing and Aunt Alexandra, which were well received. His success led to his being made a member of the Finnish Art Association and to his appointment to teach at the Drawing School of the Viipuri Friends of Art. He is the author of part of the murals and stained-glass windows of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Tampere. The Wounded Angel is one of the most recognizable of Simberg's works, it has become a trademark of Nordic symbolism and was voted Finland's "national painting" in 2006.

Alberto Giacometti (1901 – 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman and printmaker. Giacometti was one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century. His work was particularly influenced by artistic styles such as Cubism and Surrealism.   Between 1938 and 1944 Giacometti's sculptures had a maximum height of 2.75 inches. After World War II, Giacometti created his most famous sculptures: his extremely tall and slender figurines. In Giacometti's whole body of work, his painting constitutes only a small part. After 1957, however, his figurative paintings were equally as present as his sculptures.
Image Source: Ioana Jimborean, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons